I agree. Although my first instinct would be to want to see her destitute and rejected, revenge is a dish best served cold, and as you say, she DOES end up ruined. She will never gets what she wants because she is chasing a phantasm, a nothing, an egotistical dream that can never be attained: permanent satisfaction of the ego, but not based on accomplishment or merit, but simply on her pure being, which amounts to very little.

--Previous Message-- : : : : "Undine is an extreme case of the : unlikable person rendered perplexingly : sympathetic by her desires. She’s almost : comically indestructible, like Wile E. : Coyote. The interest I take in her ascent, : her Coyote-like survival of the seeming : wipeout blows that her divorces deliver to : her social standing, may be akin to the : fascination of watching one spider in a jar : prevail over other spiders, but I still : can’t read the book without aligning myself : with her struggle." : : H-m-m. Well, I can. I would have loved to : see the book end with her complete ruin. I : absolutely loathed her. : : I wouldn't have liked - aesthetically - : Undine's ruin. It's too much for me that at : the end of Dangerous Liaisons when the woman : is ruined both socially and physically : (smallpox as I recall). I find Undine's end : highly satisfying aesthetically. She gets : all she wants and finds that she wanted : something else and is dissatisfied. She's a : failure from beginning to end because she : can never really be happy for long. : : I do not, however, sympathize with her. I : never feel frustrated with her parents or : Ralph or the Marquis for standing in her way : as Franzen says. I feel frustrated with : them, esp. with Ralph, for not casting her : off, freeing themselves from her. Her : parents hardly can, I suppose. The Marquis, : to some extent, does. But poor Ralph is just : besotted with love or something. Even when : he thinks badly of her. I suppose his social : codes tell him he must do all he can to make : the marriage work. Van Degan is the lucky : one. He never gets what he wants, but he : doesn't get ruined. : :